House light replacements

[adam2]

As others have posted, there are numerous "dimmable" LED lamps that are intended to dim on a standard dimmer, whether theatrical or d0m3stic. They all work to an extent but none dim smoothly, or properly at the bottom of the range.

 

If large numbers of lamps are involved it can be worth dividing them over 2 dimmers, circuit A for about 80% of the lamps and circuit B for the other 20%.

 

To dim them, turn BOTH dimmers down to 10%. Then turn A off rapidly and at the same time bring B back up to say 40 or 50% A little experiment is needed in order that sudden extinction of the A group of lamps is compensated for by bringing up the B group.

 

Then dim the B group down to off.

 

There will of course be some flickering or sudden extinction of the B group of lamps at the bottom of the range, but this is much reduced by the fact that only a small proportion of the lamps are thus affected. Suppose that the LED lamps snap to off at 8%. With all the lamps on one dimmer, the light level will go from 8% to zero which is conspicuous. By controlling the lamps in two groups, only 20% of the lamps go from 8% output to zero which means that the light level in the auditorium goes from 1.6% to zero, which is more acceptable.